Linda Sorensen

GS 450: GS Portfolio Project

Professor Julia Klimova

September 1, 2001

 

 

The Impact of Capitalism

 

 

Introduction

The world existing today is the product of the many changes that have occurred, as it has made its transition from traditional to modern over the past five centuries. Through this modernization process, there have been triumphs and failures, mistakes and consequences.  The triumphs were mainly due to the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Revolution.  They brought about a modern society that is technologically advanced in many ways, yet the problems associated with the growth of these modern capitalist societies, have made the road bumpy along the way, and at times, very difficult.  The resulting modern world has been laden with problems associated with the environment, labor practices, race, class, gender, and loyalty to one’s nation state.  These problems occurred in both first and third world countries, however, the third world countries have been more deeply affected due to their lower status in global power and influence.  This paper proposes that capitalism has brought about these negative results.  The lives of the people within these countries has had to change drastically due to the impact of industry and capitalism.  It will be shown that the impacts of these problems were both immediate and lasting, leaving a world that was changed forever. 

 

Before Capitalism

Originally, those in the third world countries lived in a kin-based society, in which they individually produced all that they needed for food, tools, and shelter.  They lived in harmony with nature, not trying to manipulate it to suit their needs. For recreation, they told stories, sang, danced and participated in art and religion.  This culture was based on the “economy of affection,” which contrasted “the market economy or the centrally planned economy of modern industrialized states” (Porter & Sheppard, p. 48).  In fact, these economies of affection of the past have actually influenced practices in today’s market economies, through “barter, mutual aid, and other informal arrangements.” (Porter & Sheppard, p. 48).  Everything originally was a biomass-based economy, which was family-oriented and centered on subsistence farming, but with the penetration by capitalists during the Enlightenment, their economy changed to being market-oriented.  The “production and exchange of commodities” (Porter & Sheppard, p. 52) became a way of life.  However, the third world countries were not prepared to participate in a market economy.  They had been used to a simpler life, based on existing and taking care of their own.

 

Quest for Knowledge

As the industrial revolution, with the invention of the steam engine and the cotton gin got under way, “advances in scientific learning” were taking place. (Benton, DiYanni, 405)  Isaac Newton discovered the theory of gravitation and prompted the “Scientific Revolution,” which divided science into many areas of study, like “geology, mineralogy, zoology, and biology. (Benton, DiYanni, 405)  This also prompted a new quest for knowledge, and also planted a new idea in the mind of Denis Diderot.  Through much research, he developed a twenty-eight-volume encyclopedia, which contained information on almost anything.  This greatly satisfied the public in their ever-thirsting desire for knowledge.  During this time period, Carolus Linnaeus also developed the biological classification system, which was used to identify different species and sub-species living in the world around us.  Charles Darwin also established his theory on evolution and the development of species.  The inventors and theoreticians who brought about and participated in the industrial revolution and scientific revolution prompted many to explore their innermost thoughts.

 

The Cruelty of Capitalism

With the industrial revolution, came the dream of more production with less work, which caught the eye of the capitalists.  Capitalism was a very important part of the industrial revolution, as it was the capitalists who made it possible, financially, for the machines of the industry to be built in quantity.  Through them, it was possible to build factories and refineries.  This created many jobs, which became very specialized in nature, allowing for a division of the labor in the production of specific items.  This allowed workers to only contribute a “small fragment of the whole,” leaving their work meaningless.  They were never able to feel the satisfaction of having made a complete item themselves, but instead were left to be alienated from the work they had done.

The capitalist was usually only interested in the profit he could make from his venture.  He saw the industrial revolution as an avenue to make more money than ever before, through mass production.  Because of this, he pushed his employees very hard to work long hours. This greedy attitude of the capitalists led to worker abuse.  It seems that the harder and faster the employee worked, and the more money he made for his employer, the less he was paid.  He was barely able to make a living.  He only made enough to cover his housing and food.  His workday was so long, he only had enough time to go to work, come home to eat, then go to bed.  He was not allowed to socialize in any way while on the job.  He was basically treated like an animal, left to operate the same monotonous piece of machinery over, and over, all day long, every day.  The capitalist, on the other hand, was able to amass large fortunes and live a life of luxury.  This contrast of lifestyles caused a great amount of dissatisfaction among the workers, and they began to complain and revolt.  This got worse to the point of having to eventually organize unions in the 20^th century to protect the employees’ rights, and to bring a better balance to what profit was made by the employers and the workers.  Thanks to people like Karl Marx and others who helped fight for the rights of the blue-collar workers, unions were formed, which regulated pay, work hours, and other things that made life a little easier for the worker.  Marx criticized capitalists in the way they conducted their labor forces, and called for an end to “alienation”.  He felt that at the root of this problem was ownership of private property.  “The new system of private property had created a complex social system where greed became commonplace, manipulation moral, selfishness natural, and self-sacrifice an ideal.” (Reilly, p. 184)

 

An Issue of Race

This type of lifestyle, those who owned property and those who didn’t, brought about division because of race and class.  As we all know, division by class has been evident in societies for centuries, but “division by race is historically less widespread and more recent.” (Reilly, p. 197)  Slaves imported from Africa into the United States, and also slaves kept by the Europeans who came in and settled in Africa, were used because they were cheap labor, and were the subjects of discrimination because of color.  After slavery was abolished in Africa in 1834-1838, the blacks were eventually, by law, segregated into separate townships and were not allowed to live in a mixed black/white neighborhood.  After slavery was abolished in the United States, the blacks lived in a mixed population with the whites, but were severely discriminated against.  “Dominative racism did not disappear with slavery.  Between 1882 and 1927 in the United States 4,951 black men were lynched.  Most were acts of mob violence.  Sometimes official executions were equally grotesque…. The opera house of Livermore, Kentucky, was the site of a public execution by the audience.  Holders of orchestra tickets were given six shots; balcony tickets got one.” (Reilly, p. 208)  Because of their color, blacks were always held in a class lower than the superior whites.  They were made to use separate rest rooms and restaurants from the whites.  Many things were segregated, but in America, it was done on a social level, rather than by law, as in Africa.  This gave the white capitalists a stronger sense of power, which led him to seek more power.  Why not try expansion?

           

Capitalist Expansion

By expanding into the Philippines and Hawaii, this would give the United States a better position in case there ever was a war.  They could have their troops stationed in the Philippines, and Hawaii could be the way station for supplies.  The United States also felt that they could help the Philippines and Hawaii financially by assuming their debts, but at the same time protect their own financial interests.  However, when they went in to take over the country, they met with resistance from the Filipinos.  The American soldiers used hostility and aggression, and extinguished too many lives in doing so.  This conflict cost the lives of 4,234 American and 16,000 Filipino soldiers.  That’s not counting the women, children, and elderly who were also killed, for no reason at all.  Again, though, according to President William McKinley, it just wasn’t good business to do it otherwise.  He felt that it was almost his duty to “educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen.” (“President William McKinley” web reading)  My response would have been, “Educate who?  There aren’t any Filipinos left, you already killed them all!”

 

Pollution

The new industrial society presented great changes in the urban environment.  “The growth of the factory system, the expansion of wage labor, the increased reliance on machine production,” brought about the development of “the modern industrial city” (Foster, 53).  As capitalist profits grew, however, the environment deteriorated.  In Manchester, England, for example, the population skyrocketed to 180,000 people.  Between the overpopulation of the area and the factory refuse, the area was overcome with environmental toxins.  Vegetation was destroyed and everything was covered with black residue.  The area in “England’s Midlands were called the ‘Black Country’” (Foster, 53).  People were being poisoned by many of the residual toxins of the Industrial age.  William Morris blames the problems resulting from industrialization on “capitalistic manufacture, capitalist land-owning and capitalistic exchange” (Foster, 68).  Capitalists took no care for the environment around them that was being abused.  There were a certain number of them who took an interest in the declining environment, but only when a business focused on environmental cleanup would profit him financially. 

Brazil, the African Sahel, and the postwar United States have been ecologically altered so drastically through man's desires to produce profit in cattle, single cash crop production, and industrial development.   The European capitalists insisted upon cultivating only a single cash crop in the African Sahel, but because of this, the crop (peanuts) depleted the soil of precious nutrients, causing the ground to have to lie fallow for six years. Also, the dust stirred up by all this cultivation of the ground at harvest and planting time, filled the atmosphere with dust, bringing on a change in weather patterns. The dust prevented the moisture from going through its cycle of evaporation and precipitation.  This brought on a drought, which lasted six years and killed many people, as well as destroying the balance of the natural environment. Before the arrival of the European capitalists, the crops had been rotated, maintaining this natural balance.

In the Amazon Basin of Brazil, cattle ranching, development, and agriculture, has caused forests, which put so much oxygen into the air, to be cleared, destroying the delicate balance required to maintain its ecological integrity. Burning of the land has stripped the vegetation, which supplies the nutrients needed for the existence of the plant and animal life in the rainforest. Before the ranchers, a wide variety of vegetation existed. The loss of the rainforest has forever changed the culture of the Amazon.  It has also posed a threat to the future of our global environment.

In the postwar United States, pollution was a great concern. In a society that has become more and more careless, contributions through modern technology made it a society centered on things that could be easily discarded.  Synthetic products and the manufacturing process produced waste and pollution.  Waste from cattle in feedlots contaminated many drinking supplies.  Pesticides, detergents, synthetic fertilizers, and most other synthetic products that replaced their natural products, polluted either the air (through burning waste) or water (polluted lakes and streams, not to mention drinking water supplies).  The environment suffered, which affected not only plant and animal life, but the life of man as well.     

 

A Woman’s Worth

Gender related problems were experienced in both the first world and the third world countries, mostly due to the increasing market economy.  Women were losing their place alongside their spouses in society. Instead, they became confined to their homes, tending to household chores and raising children (they had to keep having children in order to produce more labor forces). This is where “proletarianization” took place, with people being separated from their former way of production and being forced into a wage-labor-based society, dominated by men with women being used

“as cheap labor at exceptionally low wages and in appalling working conditions, which are justified on the ideological grounds that women have less right to work than men, and that women are naturally gifted at doing difficult, dull, routine, or repetitive jobs, such as assembly, cleaning, sweeping, washing, and looking after children (Centre for Science and Environment, 1985: 179; Swantz, 1985: 1-7)” (Porter & Sheppard, p. 54).

If they did work outside the home, it was just to tend the crops in the subsistence sectors.  The work that women did was devalued because they did not get paid for their work.  This is still somewhat evident in today’s world.  Men handled the money matters and did very little around the home to help in upkeep or raising the children.  Women always ate last after the husband and children, if there was any food left after everyone else had eaten.

 

Loss of Biodiversity – Recipe for Disaster

As subsistence farming gave way to commercial farming, people were forced to farm single cash crops that would bring the most profit (for the capitalists, not the farmers).   People would try to survive off the food from these crops. However, with single crops farmed over and over instead of using rotation, the soil would be leached of its nutrients, which led to malnutrition among the people.  This was just one example of Western man’s misuse of resources.  In Indonesia, because of European colonization and capitalist influence, their traditional agricultural practices have been lost, and some of their key crops have also been lost (Foster, 93).  With a reduction of varieties of crops produced, their agricultural economy became “more vulnerable to natural hazards” (ibid.).  One disease could eradicate thousands of acres of one particular crop, causing economic disaster for their country.  With this threat, they have found it necessary to use chemicals to help put nutrients back into weakened soil and fight diseases and pests.  This has left the people of Indonesia, as well as other affected third world countries, wanting for the traditional ways when the man / nature relationship was a very important part of crop production.  Again, this was all done to benefit the capitalists, not those in the third world.  “Development and modernization have often resulted in the decline of the resource base for subsistence societies through population displacement, deforestation, and devegetation.” (Porter & Sheppard, p. 54)  These caused shortages of fuel wood, fodder, and safe water.  As a result, people had to resort to burning dung for fuel, which, because of the dangerous smoke emitted when it is burning, caused a fatal disease called cor pulmonale, which brings on heart failure.  The living conditions of the poor deteriorated, and with this deterioration came more disease, famine, and death.

           

The 20^th Century

During the 20th century, the role of the individual became more specialized in the workplace.  The thousands of occupational choices presented to an individual also brought about many other choices in everyday life.   Individual expression became very important, with emphasis on creativity.  "What is clear is that the capitalist industrial revolution initiated processes that both individualized human experiences and required new kinds of mechanical conformity." (Reilly, p. 326)  The individual was able to actually think about what he was going to do with his life - today...tomorrow...forever, at least in his eyes.  He was able to make goals and plan a future for himself and his family.  This came about partly because of "Western middle-class liberalism"...."Its ideals were freedom of thought, freedom of expression, toleration, diversity, general education and suffrage (voting), the capacity of reason, the power of ideas, and the sanctity of the individual."  (Reilly, p. 326) 

The corporate capitalists were also feeling a little creative themselves.  They were expanding on ideas brought forth in the initial industrial revolution.  A light bulb went on in Henry Ford's head when he saw an assembly line in a slaughterhouse in Chicago.  He built his own assembly line making generators, and he quadrupled "the number of generators in the same number of man-hours." (Reilly, p. 329)  That led him to start mass-producing automobiles.  "The age of the private automobile brought opportunities for privacy, leisure, and personal mobility that must be accounted as one of the chief sources of individuality in the 20th century." (Reilly, p. 330)  However, with the newly developed mass-production, the corporate capitalist's desire to run his operation as efficiently as possible drove him further.  So industrial engineers were hired to measure and analyze every aspect of the laborers actions while at work.  After their research, they were able to direct the laborer in every movement throughout his day, and by doing so, increase his production by 400 percent.  The consequence of this was that the workers only got a 60 percent pay raise as a result.  The capitalists got the rest.  The workers thought they were gaining greater individuality, but were actually having it taken away from them without even knowing it.  Because of the constant supervision to increase production, the workers were led to believe that this was being done because the management was caring for them.

 

Conclusion

Capitalism, with its division of labor and market society in the first and third world, produced a modern world with advanced industry and technology.   Over the past five centuries, first world countries prevailed with their market economy and transnational corporations have thrived.  However, throughout these five centuries, those of the third world have suffered at the hands of capitalism, and they still experience problems as a result of outside capitalist influence.  Through expansion and exploitation, the developed countries have crippled the underdeveloped countries to further their own profitable position.  The environment has also felt the sting of capitalism.  Pollution, soil depletion, desertification, and deforestation have all been produced because of capitalist practices.  Two problems today still plague us as a result of capitalism and need our attention.  There is unequal distribution of financial resources between the first and third world countries, and this inequality needs to be brought into balance so that all global citizens will have the same opportunities.   Efforts need to be made to curb the deterioration of global ecological resources, in order to avoid a global crisis situation due to loss of biodiversity.  This world is a wonderful place and capitalism does have some merits.  There is food, shelter, families, and many benefits to reap, from all the hard work that went before.  However, there is still much work to be done for the benefit of this world and mankind.  With continued efforts in working with third world countries to help them stay on their feet, and with enough respect for nature to preserve natural resources, the Earth may have the chance to be around for a long time. 

 

 

Works Cited

Benton, Janetta Rebold and DiYanni, Robert.  Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities.  Prentice Hall.  1999.

 

Foster, John Bellamy.  “the vulnerable planet: a short economic history of the environment”  Monthly Review Press.  New York, NY.  1999.

 

Mulluk, Robert.  “The Artic Circle.”  http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/arcticcircle/

 

Reilly, Kevin.  “The West and the World: A History of Civilization.”  Second Edition, Volume 2.  Harper Collins Publishers.  1989.

    

Swantz,  “Centre for Science and Environment”, 1985: 179; 1985: 1-7

Porter, Phillip Wayland, Sheppard, Eric S. “A World of Difference, Society, Nature, Development”, 1998, The Guilford Press, 72 Spring Street, New York, NY.

 

Zukas, Alex.  “Keenan telegram”.  National University.  http://www.online.nu.edu

   

Zukas, Alex.   “President William McKinley”.  National University.  http://www.online.nu.edu